When the Pot Impugns the Integrity of the Kettle

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

So self-assured have the brazen operatives of the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC) become of their putative alignment with the political culture of rank corruption and fascistic lack of accountability that these days they live an unconscionable culture of self-projection. This means, in essence, that in their desperate bid to regaining the reins of governance, Mr. Rawlings’ minions have begun accusing some of the leading members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) of crimes that are traditionally, as well as indisputably, associated with the P/NDC.

Thus it is not quite clear exactly what Mr. William Antwi, the Chief P/NDC External Propagandist, means when he salutes the newly-selected running-mate of the NPP Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, with the following sneer: “Sir, welcome to the party and enjoy it while it lasts!” (“The Haunting Skeleton in Dr. Bawumia’s Closet! Sir, Welcome to the Party!” 8/21/08).

Exactly whose party Mr. Antwi is talking about may be best known to the writer himself. But what is quite intriguing is Mr. Antwi’s risible assertion that, somehow, some “culpable” Ghanaians who served on the Board of Directors of the crisis-ridden Ghana Telecom, including Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, an undisputed star of the NPP success story, have drafted what, in the opinion of the NDC propagandist, amounts to an Indemnity Clause seeking to exculpate the Board of Directors of Ghana Telecom (GT). Wow, how interesting!

Need anybody with sound mnemonic bank remind the P/NDC Chief External Propagandist that the only Indemnity Clause that exists in Ghana is the one that was drafted and appended to our Fourth-Republican Constitution by the members of the Rawlings Corporation (R. C. Unlimited) for the protection of murderers of Ghanaian Supreme Court judges and legions of ordinary Ghanaian citizens, as well as the protection of the destroyers of Ghanaian entrepreneurial initiative. For, let none forget for even a nanosecond that, the hoopla surrounding the sale of Ghana Telecom is also a telling reminder and commentary on the P/NDC’s criminally gross mismanagement of our economy for some twenty protracted years, during which period it literally amounted to a death sentence to be regarded as a diligent and responsible Ghanaian entrepreneur. What with the summary expropriation of Tata Brewery and others, as well as the criminal and arbitrary demolition of hotel facilities belonging to independent-minded Ghanaian citizens who would neither be co-opted nor coerced into signing onto the sinister P/NDC liturgical confession of the apotheosis of Flt.-Lt. Jeremiah John (Dzelukope Jato) Rawlings?

Of course, we did not expect the P/NDC Chief External Propagandist to touch on the preceding which is the “real skeletons” in the closet of any major Ghanaian political party. Mr. Antwi also has the temerity – on the rather intemperate grounds of probity and accountability – to question Dr. Bawumia about the amount of money spent by the Kufuor Government on the “Currency Re-denomination Process.” Maybe the writer takes the Ghanaian voters for dupes, else what Mr. Antwi would be asking is precisely who and what got Ghana’s original currency into such a bottomless hole as to necessitate the sterling likes of Dr. Bawumia, a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, to come to the rescue. Here again, this bizarre and patently irrational approach to truth and logic is characteristic of the P/NDC mindset. Maybe somebody ought to tell Mr. William “Transparency” Antwi to go fish for the “old currencies” (sic) from the bedrooms of Messrs. Rawlings and Atta-Mills; after all, who printed and issued such SHIN PLASTER but the extortionate and infamous P/NDC “Juntacracy”? And once he has found the whereabouts of the old currency, by all means, let Mr. BUSANGA Antwi tell the world how much it cost the Ghanaian taxpayer to print and circulate such monetary duds. Then, and only then, shall we be getting somewhere worth our investigative while!

Indeed, informing the voting public that Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia sat on the Board of Directors of Ghana Telecom would have done absolutely nothing to erase the fact of the P/NDC having been the first Ghanaian government to have invited foreigners into the country to run GT aground and then ended up paying these same foreigners huge sums of money for wrecking the company. Is this what the likes of Messrs. Atta-Mills and Mahama mean by their “Democratic Socialist” ideology?

Then again, what is so “peace-loving” and politically progressive about a pistol-packing waif who summarily executes his predecessors in order to be allowed to wreck our hitherto quite vibrant economy for a whole generation? Indeed, anytime that I read or hear such piffle from any Ghanaian claiming to be an intellectual worthy of a well-meaning audience, I begin to wonder if, indeed, the “missing cocaine” from the Ghana Police Headquarters, which apparently precipitated the ouster of Mr. Kwamena Bartels, from the Interior Ministry, wasn’t actually staged by the likes of Mr. Antwi, in order to prove the already known: which is that the abject hypocrisy of the P/NDC operatives is the single greatest impediment to Ghana’s development.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is the author of 17 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005).
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com.